Theft of merchandise presents an ever present problem within the retail sales market, resulting in lost profits to retailers. In addition, the loss of merchandise by theft results in inaccurate inventories as the stolen items are often not accounted for until a manual inventory is performed. Such thefts may occur at any point in the flow of merchandise from the manufacturer to the point of sale to the ultimate purchaser, and include theft during transit from the manufacturer to the retailer, theft during the process of stocking merchandise, theft by employees, and theft by the public from the retailer's stores. Several methods are presently known and employed to identify and prevent such thefts. However, such known methods are either limited in their ability to detect all such thefts or are overly burdensome on customers during the process of shopping.
One such method presently employed to prevent theft of merchandise involves placing the merchandise within locked cases or locked storage rooms. When merchandise is locked within cases or storage rooms, an undue burden is placed on the customer, since assistance from a store clerk or manager is required to retrieve the merchandise and the customer is not able to physically examine the merchandise absent this assistance. During periods of high customer volume, sales may be lost due to customer impatience; and theft of merchandise may still occur, since during such periods of high customer volume, store clerks and managers may not be able to continually monitor customers for whom they have retrieved merchandise.
Another method employed to prevent theft of merchandise, often utilized with clothing of greater value, involves physically locking the merchandise to a rack by means of a cable or such. In use, such a method, has similar drawbacks to the method of locking merchandise in cases or storage room, in that, a store clerk or manager is required to unlock the item for the customer in the event of purchase, or for the customer to try on.
Although, U.S. Pat. No. 4,920,334 to DeVolpi describes a method to indicate if a cable used in locking merchandise to a rack is severed, the known methods of locking merchandise in a case, storage room, or to a rack are unable to prevent theft when items are received and before they are locked away or by employees who have access to the locked cases, storage rooms or racks.
Still another method currently employed to prevent theft of merchandise involves the utilization of security tags which are secured to items or their packaging by adhesive or mechanical means and will activate sensors at the entrance and exits to a store if not removed or deactivated. This method to prevent theft of merchandise is often ineffective, as the tags can often be easily removed or shielded from the sensors. Further, theft of the merchandise before it is tagged, or by employees who can deactivate or remove the tags, or by employees who can simply circumvent the sensors is not prevented.
Accordingly, it is the object of the present invention to provide an improved method of preventing and identifying theft of merchandise occurring anywhere between shipment from the manufacturer to sale to the ultimate purchaser, while reducing the burden of security measures on customers, and resulting in increased accuracy of inventory.